Bottling installations for bottling a liquid are known that comprise a series of filler terminals, each comprising a filler spout and a support member for supporting a container directly below the filler spout, so as to fill the containers in succession, each with a predetermined quantity of a liquid.
In those installations, the filler spout comprises a spout body having a top end connected to a feed duct and a bottom end provided with an orifice fitted with a controlled valve.
When the installation is being started up for bottling a new product liquid, it is necessary firstly to ensure that the spout bodies are filled. In view of the structure of the filler spouts, it is necessary for that purpose to feed the filler spouts while keeping their bottom orifices open until the ducts and the spout bodies have been completely purged of the air they initially contain, i.e. until the liquid flowing through said orifices does not contain any air bubbles. The liquid flowing through the bottom orifices is collected by a collector adjacent to said orifices. In order to ensure that air bubbles have not moved up into the feed duct of the filler spouts, it is necessary to let the liquid flow for a relatively long time, during which time the installation is not used for bottling the product liquid in containers.
In addition, for reasons of compactness, the collector that is used for recovering the product liquid during initial filling of the filler spouts is generally also used for recovering the washing and rinsing liquid from the filler spouts in such a manner that it is not possible to envisage re-using the liquid that passes during initial filling of the filler spout. That liquid therefore represents a loss, not only in terms of the cost of unused product liquid, but also in terms of the additional cost of treating the liquids recovered in the collector.
In addition, there currently exist ecological concerns to limit not only losses of the product liquid, but also water consumption when cleaning the installation. Traditional installations generally include a filler tank that is connected to the filler spout in order to enable the delivery rate of the liquid to be regulated, e.g. by controlling the air pressure at the surface of the liquid. That layer of air prevents any opening and closing of the spout valves leading to variations in pressure or in the delivery rate of liquid at the outlet of the filler tank. However, washing that filler tank and its associated tubing requires large quantities of water, so that there is a trend towards reducing the size of filler tanks.
There thus exist installations for bottling a liquid in which the general feed duct is connected to the filler spouts by a connection member or diffuser mounted in the place of the filler tank.
Complete removal of air from the feed ducts, from the connection member, and from the filler spouts is performed during a preproduction stage during which the spouts are fed with the liquid, which is then poured out either into containers and then discarded, or else into a liquid recovery tray, until the bubbles have disappeared completely. A relatively large quantity of product liquid is spoiled. During production, the liquids for bottling trap air, generally in the form of bubbles, which air must be eliminated in order to improve the accuracy and the repeatability with which containers are filled, and in order to prevent overflow from the containers. In addition, a portion of that air runs the risk of accumulating in the high portions of the feed ducts, thus making operator intervention necessary during production in order to exhaust the accumulated air by operating a vent valve.
One solution to that problem has been to replace the connection member with a filler tank of reduced volume.
In filler tanks, bubbles rise easily to the surface of the liquid: the filler tanks thus facilitate the removal of gas or bubbles from the liquid and they are correspondingly more useful the greater the viscosity of the liquid. However, the question of washing the tank once again arises.